Diabetics on Statins ?

[Pura Vida]

Diabetics on Statins More Likely to Die From COVID


https://articles.mercola.com/sites/...More&cid=20201125&mid=DM729339&rid=1019562400

 

[Ronancastled]

Crikey, feel like throwing mine in the bin after reading that.
How reputable a source is that ?

 

[Redshank]

To be fair to the article, another study mentioned in the article showed the opposite.....

(I personally would not take statins - but not for this reason)

 

[bulkbiker]

Crikey, feel like throwing mine in the bin after reading that.
How reputable a source is that ?

Whilst I'm not personally a Mercola fan I don't find the news surprising.. statins mess with all sorts of mechanisms in the body that are there to protect us so....

 

[zand]

Well viruses cause inflammation and one thing cholesterol does is help combat inflammation. Statins artificially lower cholesterol so I am not surprised by this at all.

 

[Oldvatr]

In the days before statins were given out free with Green Shield Stamps, they used to require a comorbidity, generally a CVD condition such as stroke or heart attack. Since diabetics have an association with these events as a weakness of the diabetes, then we too became guinea pigs and cash cows, Now anyone can get them and doctors do not need to do the diagnosis and follow up with regular blood tests They have become as sweets.

The following article was posted in another thread, but I think it is relevant to the discussion
https://www.jpands.org/vol20no2/miller.pdf

 

[bulkbiker]

Crikey, feel like throwing mine in the bin after reading that.
How reputable a source is that ?

Why do you take them?

 

[Ronancastled]

Why do you take them?

My cholesterol was 8.5 at diagnosis, no breakdown.
Doctor said they were a necessity.
Bloods 6 month later I was down to 4, I was told "higher in the good one & lower in the bad one" but no copy of results to consult.
I've looked for copies of all my previous labs but was told I'd have to wait until after Covid.
I know of the link to decreased insulin sensitivity but I don't seem to be suffering from any issues in that department atm.

 

[bulkbiker]

My cholesterol was 8.5 at diagnosis, no breakdown.
Doctor said they were a necessity.
Bloods 6 month later I was down to 4, I was told "higher in the good one & lower in the bad one" but no copy of results to consult.
I've looked for copies of all my previous labs but was told I'd have to wait until after Covid.
I know of the link to decreased insulin sensitivity but I don't seem to be suffering from any issues in that department atm.

Without the breakdown the figures are pretty meaningless.. your doctor (were they up to speed) would know this.. that they haven't given them to you makes it sound like you are being used to tick their box and earn the practise some extra dosh. Whether your health has actually benefitted from them appears to be a moot point.

 

[Robbity]

I was taking statins long before I was diagnosed as T2, and I learned after the event that they raise glucose levels. I got agreement (from a different GP who was for a short while my diabetes "go-to") that I could stop taking them, and I had an almost immediate but slight drop in glucose levels, but the lack of them has made no apparent difference to my cholesterol levels. So in retrospect they appear to have done s*d all for me except possibly helping me on my way to T2...

 

[Bluetit1802]

My cholesterol was 8.5 at diagnosis, no breakdown.
Doctor said they were a necessity.
Bloods 6 month later I was down to 4, I was told "higher in the good one & lower in the bad one" but no copy of results to consult.
I've looked for copies of all my previous labs but was told I'd have to wait until after Covid.
I know of the link to decreased insulin sensitivity but I don't seem to be suffering from any issues in that department atm.

Are you living in England? If so you should be entitled to see your blood test results on-line, but to do this you need to register for it at your GP surgery. You could give them a ring.

 

[Daphne917]

Are you living in England? If so you should be entitled to see your blood test results on-line, but to do this you need to register for it at your GP surgery. You could give them a ring.

Unfortunately that’s still not the case for all GP surgeries. Every time I ask I’m told it depends on what the practice originally signed up to - which in my case was just for online prescriptions and appointments which means the only thing I can currently do online is order my prescriptions.

 

[Max68]

A quick search threw up a host of contradictory articles. Confusing or what!

Data Contradict on Statin Effect in Diabetes With COVID-19 (medscape.com)

Statins Tied to Lower COVID-19 Death Risk in People With Diabetes (diabetesselfmanagement.com)

Statin Use and In-Hospital Mortality in Diabetics with COVID-19 - PubMed (nih.gov)

 

[Oldvatr]

A quick search threw up a host of contradictory articles. Confusing or what!

Data Contradict on Statin Effect in Diabetes With COVID-19 (medscape.com)

Statins Tied to Lower COVID-19 Death Risk in People With Diabetes (diabetesselfmanagement.com)

Statin Use and In-Hospital Mortality in Diabetics with COVID-19 - PubMed (nih.gov)

The same website has this offering which is pertinent to our collective conditions.
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/933787

Hyperglycemia is a pointer to the severity of hospital admission outcomes.

 

[Oldvatr]

A quick search threw up a host of contradictory articles. Confusing or what!

Statin Use and In-Hospital Mortality in Diabetics with COVID-19 - PubMed (nih.gov)

This report gives the following explanation
"In addition, propensity score matching and inverse probability treatment weighting (IPTW) were used in survival models"
This is using fiddle factors to boost a theory which makes me very suspicious.

The fact that they only found that it was effective in diabetics on statins, but no effect on those not on statins, or who were not diabetic is further weakness in their findings. I have no confidence in this report at all.

Edit to add: A similar study on statins and in-hospitalization mortality in patients with heart failure co-morbidity (ie not diabetes) had the following admission tacked into the small print which shows that this topic is being influenced by interested parties.
Conflict of interest statement
ABD, IB, JR, JJ, SvH, and AVH have no conflicts of interest to disclose; DPM has given talks and attended conferences sponsored by MSD, AstraZeneca and Libytec; SDA reports personal fees from Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Vifor, Servier and Novartis, outside the submitted work; MB has served on the speakers bureau of Abbott/Mylan, Abbott Vascular, Actavis, Akcea, Amgen, Biofarm, KRKA, MSD, Sanofi-Aventis, Servier and Valeant, and has served as a consultant to Abbott Vascular, Akcea, Amgen, Daichii Sankyo, Esperion, Lilly, MSD, Resverlogix, Sanofi-Aventis; Grants from Sanofi and Valean

It seems that the main study I discuss in this post was funded by an NIH government grant and no other funding was declared. BUT - there was no conflict of interest statement either.

 

[oldgreymare]

The same website has this offering which is pertinent to our collective conditions.
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/933787

Hyperglycemia is a pointer to the severity of hospital admission outcomes.

The medscape page references a number of Covid death related studies, but pragmatically it is still very, very early days before there are enough large scale longterm analyses to give reliable insight into the factors affecting Covid outcomes. That said, it makes sense that anything that may raise inflammatory responses (hyperglycemia is a classic factor) can result in the deadly cytokine storm response to Covid infection.